Yuli Deng is a graphic designer and illustrator based in London, UK and Changsha, China. She graduated from Nanjing University of Art with a BA in Graphic Design in 2019. Her works focus on finding the link between different disciplines and exploring the possibilities of media.
Yuli Deng
As a graphic designer, I am more of a pastor and host in the ritual of the project WISHIP.
Alain de Botton states that ‘The most futile question people ask about religion is whether it is real’. Atheists take delight in the proof that God is just the imagination, but they neglect that religion is the reflection of human spiritual needs. With the development of technology, people’s patterns of worship began to shift, and the new gods are replacing the old ones. Anyone can become an idol within 15 minutes. In a sense, the online community has become the contemporary church. When human beings invent big data, their beliefs are also affected by the info-cocoon. Therefore, different from the past, this alienated worship is based on the inner needs of humans themselves, the influence of others, and the interaction between humans and AI.
The audio-visual language and design methods I use are guided by the threefold dialogues in the WISHIP project. On this basis, a contemporary church and ritual are constructed, and a multiple dialogue site has emerged.
The interface of the Digital Church.
The beginning animation of e-church
This digital church invites the audience to converse with themselves, each other and AI. In this internet era, we are all netizens, so we are all believers in this digital church. The digital church corresponds with the ancient traditions of praying and worshipping. I hope to be like a modern priest and direct a ritual that enables people to have a dialogue about their wishes, anxiety and confusion with their inner selves, other people and AI.
What happens in the digital church:
1. Dialogue with yourself.
The visitor can see their mirror reflection on the screen through the black area of the e-church, facing directly back at them.
2. Dialogue with other people.
The visitor will write down the answers to the questions on the screen. The initiator of the first question is me as a pastor. The visitor will leave their questions for the following strangers.
3. Interact with AI.
The e-church uses programs to randomly generate ‘contemporary worship’ images from different social platforms. The images appear in response to ‘the conversation with others’. These words and images become part of the middle of the church and continue to influence the program and other people.
The prayer book uses transparent films to allow multiple images to reflect the viewer. It has no cover and no title, but rather a series of questions that lead the viewer to consider what they want and what they could get.
The book consists of two parts and a poster. The first part is informed by the audience’s upload about their beliefs, wishes and anxieties. The second part is left blank for the audience to write about what they want to leave behind when arriving at the e-church.
Part 01 — The inner mirror
Part 02- The interactive blank
The poster of WISHIP –
A poster accompanies the book. Many people stick posters of their idols in their rooms. When they are pinned up the idols become worship objects. This poster uses transparent film to create an inner mirror.